I'm the Chief Product Officer of Forbes Media. It's been a long journey: The New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, a little tabloid TV, AOL -- and I certainly don't want to forget TMZ. I lived through a newspaper strike (sounds quaint, right?), the New York City Black Out in '77, and my bout with the Cabbage Patch Dolls. I was the founder and CEO of True/Slant, which FORBES invested in and acquired four years ago. I got hooked on the News business as the student editor of The Daily Iowan during the days of Vietnam, Watergate and Roe v. Wade. I can quote all the best lines from "All the President's Men," and I still think Howard Beale did it better than all the real-life pretenders who followed him. I owe so much to James Bellows -- a truly gifted editor, an extraordinary human being and a mentor who was always there for me.

Inside Forbes: How Journalists, Consumers and Marketers Build Their Brands On Our Platform

I spend a lot of time walking the halls of FORBES spreading my enthusiasm for our new model for journalism and our evolving social news experience. I’m also carefully listening to staff editors and reporters to learn what works for them and what doesn’t as they help lead the industry into the future. In my office walk-abouts, I love picking up phrases from others that speak to what they believe we’re doing. Drew Hansen, who runs our editorial business development and audience teams, said something to me last week that resonated in its simplicity: “FORBES has become a brand-building platform for all its participants.”

I talk about brand-building all the time, but never in such an expansive way. Mostly, I explain how staffers and contributors publish to individually branded pages like this one and work to gather loyal audiences around their topic-specific knowledge. Something about Drew’s comment captured an unfolding reality: brand-building on FORBES is fast-becoming a jumping off point to other platforms (online and off) and applies to far more than 1,000 reporters, authors, academics and category experts. News consumers and marketers are doing the same, with all participants benefiting from engagement with each other.

– Andy Greenberg, one of our technology reporters in New York, used his individually branded page on Forbes.com to focus on computer security and hackers. His comprehensive and in-depth digital work (more than our magazine could ever accommodate) caught the attention of Julian Assange, leading to an exclusive interview, a timely cover story in FORBES magazine and continuous coverage of Wikileaks online. All that led to a book deal for Andy on the history of cryptographic anonymity and how it led to Wikileaks.

– Parmy Olson, a staff reporter in London, followed a similar path (“My book would have never happened if it weren’t for my posts on Forbes.com”). Parmy was intrigued by a loose confederation of hackers known as Anonymous. She began to post about the group’s bigger attacks, developed sources in Britain and reached out to core supporters, including a purported 16-year-old girl hacker. Parmy’s controversial email interview with the teen resulted in her most popular post. Her continued posts have built an audience for the release of her upcoming book, We Are Anonymous: Inside the World LulzSec, Anonymous and the Global Cyber Insurgency.

– Staff reporter David Ewalt, a geek and avid gamer, scored a book deal to write about the history of Dungeons & Dragons, in large part because of his digital presence and access to millions of Forbes.com readers. He’s now building an audience for his book on Forbes.com by frequently covering the gaming industry and tech culture. “As I wrote the book,” says David, “I could post about D&D and related subjects on my page, building awareness about the book, increasing interest and establishing myself as an expert on the subject.” Of Dice and Men is scheduled to be released later this year.

– Contributor David Disalvo writes about the brain and neuroscience. He developed his book, What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite, just as he was gaining traction with digital consumers through his personal blog and his presence on True/Slant (the startup FORBES acquired). ”I really can’t overstate the importance of already having an audience at FORBES when the book was released,” David said. “It’s a tremendous platform for building awareness about the book – not as a direct promotional vehicle, but rather as a means for people to check out my writing and determine if they’d like to read more.”

– Contributor Rick Ungar, a health care policy expert who lives is Los Angeles, now makes regular appears on FORBES on FOX, a television news show, in conjunction with his work on Forbes.com. Rick says he’s doing much more TV and radio work, has new access to top White House officials and increasingly makes speeches across the county, including at the annual Medicare conference next week in Orlando.

That’s just the beginning of what can be for all participants in all our channels. For now, let’s just focus on the Entrepreneurs channel, a particularly interesting vertical as small businesses and startups continue to drive innovation. The chart to the right begins to lay it out. Say there are three main segments within Entrepreneurs: micro business, promising companies and small cap companies. Now imagine the three types of participants in each segment: staffers and contributors (the gray circles), the audience (yellow) and marketers (red).

Reporters, authors, academics and experts can gather audience around their specific knowledge on their Forbes.com page. That knowledge can certainly lead to traditional book deals. But there are also quick-hit e-books, sometimes called e-singles (25-30,000 words produced in a few weeks). FORBES is working on a plan to connect our contributors with a startup company that quickly turns around these tightly focused digital books. The same expert content creators could run an online or offline class for aspiring entrepreneurs (FORBES is exploring that, too, with another startup). And, of course, there are always speaking engagements. In each case the power and reach of the FORBES brand can help content creators build their own multi-platform brand.

Next come the digital news consumers who engage, or “transact,” with our content creators through commenting. Many have already made a bit of a name for themselves in our different channels, and you can often find their faces in the Called Out Comment Strip beneath a post’s headline. The upcoming launch of what we call universal registration will enable readers to register to comment using their credentials from six different social accounts. It also means we’ll be able to track “desired user behaviors” — the frequency of their visits, how many staffers or contributors they follow, how often their comments are “Called Out.” Those who score the highest will be elevated across the site, helping to build their brands as knowledgeable business news consumers (and perhaps even become contributors).

Adventurous marketers have perhaps the most innovative opportunities to build brands in these three segments. Right now, they can publish content on Forbes.com through our AdVoice Program. Soon, new advertising units on our pages will present additional opportunities. These rich media ads, approved by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, are called “Rising Stars.” They enable consumers to actually engage with a display ad without disrupting their experience — that is, they won’t need to click off to a marketer’s site. Marketers will be able to “pull forward” into the new units content from their sites that they would like consumers to interact with — such as video, white papers, press releases and thought leadership articles. The “Rising Star” units are expected to result in clickthrough rates of 1 to 2%, substantially higher than the current industry average of 0.05% (5 clicks for every 10,000 views). With the new units, marketers in the Entrepreneurs channel — or any of our channels — will be able to build their brands alongside content creators and knowledgeable consumers.

Opportunities abound at FORBES as we continue to iterate our unique content-creation model and consumer experience. Nearly 850 expert contributors have made us their home, and those participating in our incentive-payment program are making some money, too. The Web audience is finding content they want. We finished January with 28.8 million unique users, up 70% from a year ago, according to Omniture, a widely used industry reporting service. That was our fifth consecutive record month of traffic. The magazine’s people-centric, entrepreneurial cover strategy is attracting a new generation or readers. Our marketing partners are finding success with the new ways we provide to connect with consumer in print and online.

Hannah Elliott, a staff reporter who writes about luxury cars and other high-priced fun stuff, is building her brand in print, digital and video. She, too, caught my attention with this observation: ”FORBES means something,” Hannah said, referring to the traditional values and standards of our 94-year-old heritage. “Now FORBES means something again – new.” I’ve certainly never said it quite like that.

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Getting mentioned in the same post as talented people like Andy, Parmy, David, Rick and Hannah is another great feature of the FORBES model.

Contributors build their own brand, but they don’t do it alone; we borrow strength from everyone on the network. When Andy gets a scoop or Hannah posts a great video, it increases the value of my work, too. A rising tide lifts all boats.

I loved reading this post so full of information as well as inspiration. Looks like FORBES is exactly what we need to read about, to follow and be inspired by. Your timely article above is very exciting and inspiring.

I hope future updates with additional success stories will be posted and, I am looking forward to those updates. You certainly are an inspiration to us all!

Awe, man! I will never be up there with Hannah and the rest of the Forbes staffers in the scribe dept., but this car crazy Texan will keep on burning rubber as long as there are people who love the rides.

I feel very fortunate to even be called out on my irrational comments. Thanks. Mikey – Carisms.

Thanks, Lewis. Forbes is truly unique in the market: a time-honored brand with incredible tradition that is also a forward-thinking leader in the digital content marketplace. I feel privileged to be a part of it.

Inventive. What impresses me most is that, unlike the WSJ and the NY Times, you’ve chosen to open up your community to audiences beyond “subscribers.” Instead of a “gated community,” you’ve created a public square—a true marketplace for ideas.

And, best of all, you haven’t outsourced your community to Facebook, as Gannett, CNN, and so many others have done in an attempt to force a “civil tone” to political conversations, while quietly building a database of prospective consumers.

Instead, Forbes has allowed the full social and artistic freedom afforded by anonymity to all who participate in its community. This allows writers who occasionally churn out “inciteful” sociopolitical content the ability to speak their minds behind the scrim of a “nom de guerre,” a pen name, or simply, total anonymity. Thus, Forbes remains true to its founding ideals— and to our nation’s founders’ commitment to individual freedom and liberty. From Publius to Ayn Rand and from Mark Twain to George Orwell, great social, political, and artistic thinking has sprung forth through the freedom to choose one’s signature.